Welcome to AHA Flip Cam Friday! Each Friday we’re going to have a Flip Cam video for you to watch.
A Flip Cam has become an important part of AHA. It’s super easy to use, to do simple edits and upload content. It puts a face to your organization.
Here is a link to the video on Vimeo.
There is an interesting blog post on Mediapost.com that highlights how many organizations are using social media without a strategy. The number is high and while it shouldn’t, considering what I see every day, it surprises me.
I have to admit that there are days (like today) when it feels like I am repeating myself over and over again on this blog. Let me say it again – it all comes back to strategy. To be effective using social media, or when using any communications or PR tool, you need to have a strategy.
When it comes to developing a strategy, one of the challenges goes beyond the fact that social media is cool, fun and “new.” I also think that there is some confusion in a lot of organizations about what a strategy is. I have been in quite a few meetings where the meaning of the words “strategic” and “tactical” were confused. Our friends at Beaupre PR have an excellent blog post on the difference between strategy and tactics. It is definitely worth a read, even if you are clear on the difference.
Without defining your strategy, it’s hard to identify your objective. For example, tomorrow (Friday) – we at AHA are launching AHA Flip Cam Fridays on this blog. Our strategy is to further position our Vancouver PR agency as a leader in providing strategic PR in the age of social media. We focused on transforming our small Vancouver PR agency into one of Vancouver’s hottest PR companies. In order to do that, we identified several tactics that would support our objective of building our client base by establishing our knowledge and skill set in the areas of PR and social media. That includes moving AHA up in the Google rankings under the searches of Vancouver PR, Vancouver PR agency, AHA and AHA Creative Strategies.
If we had just decided that we wanted to video blog, that would have been a little like putting the cart before the horse. Why should we video blog and what is the purpose of going to that extra effort? For us, we defined what we wanted to achieve and then we identified the tools that would help us get there.
The social media component of our plan to grow AHA is just that, a component. There are other areas that we are focused on as well. I also speak regularly to groups, associations and organizations about the importance of blending social media and traditional PR.
There isn’t just one prong to our approach and that’s because we defined our strategy first and then developed the overall approach and identified which tools would work in this situation.
That’s my two cents worth for today. I am looking forward to tomorrow and the launch of AHA Flip Cam Friday.
Here at AHA (you know, in this Vancouver PR agency of ours!), we’re big fans of Brian Solis. Recently, we came across a post on his site that we’d like to share with you – the 21 Rules of Engagement in Social Media. (He also has a book – Engage – that he has just published that is worth purchasing. There is a link on his blog.)
Engagement is, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges for an organization that wants to use social media as a part of their communications outreach. It’s relatively simple to set up a Twitter or Facebook page, but not as easy to populate these areas with good content that engages your community.
The first step that Brian outlines is this: Discover all relevant communities of interest and observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within each network.
That seems simple enough, but there are a lot of organizations that – in their haste and excitement to participate – jump past it. Don’t.
Believe me, it is an important step. I have had several interesting discussions with CEOs and other senior executives that challenge me on why they should invest (one said waste) time and money on this step. Understanding the culture and the different style of communication online is crucial. There have been several big organizations in the news recently that faced a PR crisis because they didn’t appreciate that online is a different environment and each online community may have their own protocol and style. One point that I make when walking a senior team through this point is – you wouldn’t take your organization into a new market without first understanding its culture, political landscape and the way life works on a day-to-day basis in the “real” world. It’s no different online. Not only is it valuable to identify all the relevant communities of interest – it is crucial to spend some time understanding the culture and paying attention to how they want you to join the conversation.
The time you invest in listening and learning will pay off in the long run.
We’ll be touching on a few more of Brian’s points over the next few weeks. We’d love to hear what you think.
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I find it interesting that social media is still such a big, overwhelming topic for many people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for business. I think that as much as it has revolutionized how we communicate – and for those of us who are professional communicators, it has changed how we do our work – it is still just a tool. A very interesting, challenging and addictive tool, but a tool nonetheless.
I think that the perception of how complex, complicated and vast social media is – is a challenge. When I present to groups or lead brainstorming and planning sessions with clients, I hear how overwhelming it feels to them. Now, we’re a PR firm that provides social media services, so I think we have a different perspective on it than a social media marketer or an online community developer might, but at the core of it, social media is only a component of your communications plan or your overall marketing plan. When you take a step back and see that you need to develop a strategy first, it takes a bit of the stress off. Once you understand your strategy, then you can research which tools – whether traditional or social media focused – are the right ones.
We are often asked to come and speak to fairly large organizations to lead them through PR and social media planning. I think sometimes they are surprised to learn that we are just a small Vancouver PR agency with a specific approach to the use of social media.
Personally, I think social media is the best thing to happen to PR in a long time. It moves forward into a business (and personal) world of transparency, showcasing doing the right thing and owning up to mistakes if/when they are made.
There is a great blog post on Social Media Philippines that touches on the actions that will create a failure, when it comes to social media. It’s worth a read.
Last week I attended and participated in a presentation given by our friend and colleague Della Smith of Q Workshops. This presentation was focused on how you include social media in your overall communications strategy. What I like about this presentation is that it provides a roadmap of what you should do, as well as showcases what not to do. Della and I present a specialized workshop for organizations where we walk clients through developing or updating their communications plan to include social media. Our approach is always to work with our client to design a proactive plan that includes reactive components, blending traditional communications with social media.